In a controlled environment, such as within a prison or jail facility, controlling access, information, interaction, and/or transactions is often of particular interest. In a prison facility in particular, safety and security is of paramount importance and, therefore, the number one job of the personnel thereof is to effectively implement controls with respect to the residents (inmates) thereof. However, such controlled environments often provide an environment much like a small city in which a number of individuals work and live, thus requiring various goods and/or services associated with civilized society. Accordingly, various exchanges of information, money, goods, etcetera may be performed in association with individuals of a controlled environment, both within the controlled environment and external thereto.
For example, an inmate residing in a prison facility may wish to communicate with friends and family outside of the prison facility. Likewise, an inmate may wish to acquire commissary items, such as toiletries, bed linens, clothing, and food items. An inmate may also require medical services, such as consultation with a nurse or physician and dispensing of prescription medications.
However, facilitating and administrating exchanges of information, money, goods, etcetera with respect to a controlled environment facility, such in association with each of the foregoing examples, is often costly and time consuming and may even present security and safety issues. For example, often substantial controlled environment facility personnel (e.g., guard) time is expended in scheduling visitations, conducting background checks with respect to visitors, providing information regarding visitation times and rules, etcetera. Likewise, substantial controlled environment facility personnel time is expended in taking orders for commissary items, verifying that individuals have sufficient funds to purchase commissary items, accepting and accounting for funds received from various individuals for the benefit of another individual to purchase commissary, reporting status of accounts and orders, delivering commissary orders, etcetera. Substantial controlled environment facility personnel time is expended in scheduling infirmary visits, distributing medications, confirming that appropriate medications have been distributed and consumed in accordance with prescriptions, etcetera. Moreover, such personnel may be called upon repeatedly to perform such tasks as respond to balance inquiries, explain account deductions/credits, answering frequently asked questions, and/or the like. The time such controlled environment facility personnel dedicate to such tasks is both costly to the controlled environment facility and removes such personnel from other tasks, such as securing the facility and monitoring the activity of the population.
Moreover, such tasks as accomplished today are typically largely paper based and require appreciable manual processing, thereby further aggravating the directing of personnel's attention away from tasks more primary to the operation of the controlled environment facility and further adding to the costs. For example, appreciable resources are often involved in taking commissary orders, such as to provide updated item and price lists, order forms (e.g., SCANTRON forms), etcetera. Accordingly, current processes for facilitating and administering exchanges of information, money, goods, etcetera with respect to a controlled environment facility involve substantial expenses for consumable resources.
The level of service provided to individuals attempting to exchange information, money, goods, etcetera with respect to a controlled environment facility is often unsatisfactory. For example, friends or family of an inmate may wish to visit the inmate, but not have information with respect to visitation rules, visitation times, and the inmate's schedule. Accordingly, a friend or family member may travel to a prison in which the inmate is incarcerated only to find that the friend or family member is not attired according to the prison visitation dress code, that visitation is not offered that day/time, that the inmate is indisposed at a infirmary appointment, and/or the like. Accordingly, the friend or family member may be unable to visit the inmate. The friend or family member may obtain information from prison personnel regarding the dress code and visitation hours in an effort to return when visitation is possible. However, even the second visitation attempt may result in failure, such as due to the inmate being indisposed or the prison being in an unexpected “lock-down” state (e.g., due to inmate disobedience). Friends or family members may have difficulty and/or be required to wait appreciable amounts of time to obtain information, such as the condition of an inmate, whether an inmate has been given their prescription medication, an account balance for an inmate, etcetera, because they must identify the appropriate prison personnel to query and await information from their query. In many situations, the friends and family are unable to obtain many such information services.
Dissatisfaction with the level of services provided may also be present with respect to the population residing within the controlled environment facility. For example, inmates in a prison may be required to wait substantial periods of time to obtain information, such as time remaining in their sentence, the number of days of good behavior they have achieved, an account balance, etcetera, because prison personnel must be queried, the prison personnel must obtain the information from an appropriate source, and return the information to the inmate. Inmates may not even be provided some services which would be beneficial. For example, inmates are often unable to take steps toward obtaining employment after their release while they are still incarcerated.
Controlled environment facility personnel may also find level of services provided unsatisfactory. For example, as mentioned above, such personnel may repeatedly be asked to provide information to inmates as well as friends and family of inmates. The requested information may be of general interest, and thus provided repeatedly, or of special interest, often requiring the personnel to identify the appropriate source of information, obtain the information, and provide the retrieved information to the appropriate person. Such personnel may additionally or alternatively be assigned tasks, such as conducting background checks on visitors, for which insufficient information is provided (e.g., the visitor failing to provide a driver's license number or social security number) and/or for which only manual or inadequate systems are available to perform the task.
Until recently it was generally believed that telephones could not safely be placed within particular controlled environment facilities, such as prison facilities, for use by residents thereof. However, telephone terminals and call control systems have been developed which have allowed telephones to be placed within controlled environment facilities, such as within prison pods, for use by the residents thereof. For example, telephone terminals which are adapted to withstand the abuse of prisoners and call control systems allowing calls to be placed only to authorized number lists have been developed to meet safety and security requirements.
Using telephone terminals placed within the controlled environment facilities has enabled residents to establish communications with friends and family without the assistance of controlled environment facility personnel. Moreover, the use of such telephone systems has resulted in appreciable revenues to the controlled environment facilities. However, implementation of the foregoing telephone systems has not fully addressed the issues associated with facilitating and administrating communications between residents and their friends and family. For example, calls placed through the telephone systems must typically be paid for. Accordingly, controlled environment facility personnel continue to be required to establish pre-paid accounts, accept funds from individuals, update account balances, provide information regarding account balances and status, and account for funds.